1. Field
One or more embodiments relate to an eletrophotographic image forming apparatus which prints an image by feeding toner to an electrostatic latent image formed on a photoconductor, developing the electrostatic latent image, transferring the developed image to a recoding medium, and fixing the developed image to the recoding medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Eletrophotographic image forming apparatuses print out an image on a recording medium by irradiating modulated light corresponding to image information to a photoconductor, forming an electrostatic latent image on the surface of the photoconductor, feeding toner to this electrostatic latent image to develop a visible image, transferring the visible image to a recording medium, and fixing the visible image to the recording medium.
A developer that develops an electrostatic latent image to a photoconductor may receive the toner from a toner cartridge. A toner buffer unit, which receives the toner from the toner cartridge and feeds the toner to the developer, may be arranged between the developer and the toner cartridge. Thus, the toner may be fed from the toner cartridge to the developer via the toner buffer unit.
The toner buffer unit may include an agitating member to agitate the toner contained inside the agitating member and a carrying member to feed the toner to the developer.
When the agitating member and the carrying member are driven by a single motor, the agitating member and the carrying member are driven altogether. When the agitating member is driven to supplement the toner from the toner cartridge to the toner buffer unit, the carrying member is simultaneously driven. Thus the toner is fed to the developer. In this case, although feeding the toner to the developer is unnecessary, the toner may be continuously fed to the developer due to driving of the carrying member. Finally, the concentration of the toner in the developer may exceed a reference concentration. This may lead to a decrease in the image quality.
On the other hand, when the agitating member and the carrying member are driven by separate motors in order to prevent overfeeding of the toner to the developer, the number of motors is doubled, and, thus increases in size and price of a developing device may occur.